A lot of the time we have to read Russian sources (or British, etc) to find out what is going on here. Correction: a lot of the time you have to read Russian sources (or British, etc.) to confirm your bias.
Seriously, there is nothing more frightening than a "conservative" defending the Russian press. Those that aren't in prison, already, I mean.
I would refer you to various links that get posted here and are remarkable in how honest Pravda is compared to NYT or Washington Post. I could find for you but you can probably do that yourself. What I didn't realize is that domestic freedom of the press in Russia is very poor until I read through the link I posted above from
http://en.rsf.org/russia.html I stand corrected, freedom of the press within Russia is very limited.